Missed Deadlines, Tried to Recruit Our Team, and Refused to Refund
We hired Zaima through Upwork after she represented that she owned and operated her own agency. Unfortunately, our experience was extremely disappointing.
The engagement began with a copywriting project. From the outset, Zaima repeatedly failed to meet agreed-upon deadlines. Despite multiple extensions and opportunities to complete the work, the copywriting project remained unfinished.
Wanting to give her another opportunity to succeed, we continued the engagement and also assigned her a website development project. Around that time, Zaima explained that she was experiencing financial hardship and asked to be paid upfront for both the copywriting and website development work. In good faith, we agreed.
Unfortunately, the same issues continued. The copywriting project was never completed, the website development project was never delivered, and this pattern of missed deadlines and assurances that the work would be finished continued for months.
During this period, multiple members of our contractor team reported that Zaima had contacted them directly in an effort to recruit them to work for her own agency. We also received complaints that these communications made them uncomfortable and disrupted our team. The situation ultimately contributed to us losing contractors.
After months of extending deadlines and attempting to resolve the situation, we concluded that the projects were not going to be completed and ended the engagement. We requested a refund for the upfront payments made for the unfinished work, but Zaima refused.
Based on our firsthand experience, we cannot recommend hiring Zaima or her agency. Our experience included repeated missed deadlines, failure to deliver both the copywriting and website development projects after receiving upfront payment, refusal to refund payment for unfinished work, and attempts to recruit members of our contractor team for her own agency during an active engagement.